How to Say Goodbye in Robot, by Natalie Standiford
Realistic fiction
Booktalk: Meet Bea and Jonah – a.k.a. Robot Girl and Ghost Boy.
Bea’s mom called her Robot Girl because she didn’t cry when her gerbil – whom she’d named after a famous Nazi – died. But of course Bea doesn’t get too attached to things – she’s never lived in one place for more than a year.
At her new school she meets Jonah. He’s called Ghost Boy because of his pale skin – and because of a nasty prank his classmates pulled on him back in seventh grade.
They’re unusual people, so of course they become friends in an unusual way – through a note written on a paper airplane, then a show on late-night AM radio, then through long phone conversations. Over the course of the school year, Jonah and Bea form a unique, quirky, and intense friendship that seems destined to end in love – or tragedy.
Weird but real, funny and sad, How to Say Goodbye in Robot is a great read.
Similar titles: Eleanor & Park (Rainbow Rowell), Sweethearts (Sara Zarr), Dairy Queen (Catherine Gilbert Murdock), A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend (Emily Horner)